Au Pair World or an agency?

[TaDaaah]

I'm going to need to find a new au pair when my current (and lovely) one leaves. She's so wonderful and is going to start her exciting life at Uni.
We found each other through a Facebook site. She'd been asked to leave her family (with get consent, I called to check that this was true as have heard of girls doing a runner and leaving families in the lurch). It just wasn't a good match, apparently. Has wired out brilliantly for us, though.

Since she originally went to them through an agency, I'm wondering whether agencies are any better at finding au pairs. Clearly not for the family that didn't take to her, but perhaps for us. My previous experience had been of only French au pairs and through Au Pair World. I was used quite badly and blatantly a few times - I taught them English and when they were fluent (6 months), they buggered off to Central London to be nannies.
I'm also wondering whether there's a general and genuine difference in which nationality we select. Our current au pair is German. She never does the snorting, eye rolling thing that the French au pairs so often did, is uber-organised and likes to know the routine, will happily adapt, etc. very different and great. Anyway, just wondering about people's experiences of au pairs of different nationalities and of Au Pair World vs using a decent agency. Sorry to have gone on. I'm v tired.

I've had four Spanish au pairs, the first through an agency and the others through Au Pair World. I much prefer using APW as I have a pretty good idea of the type of person I want. It does mean trawling through a lot of applications and taking up references myself, but the agency would only give me a couple of CVs at a time so it took longer through them. I have just recruited my fifth au pair on APW to start in June, and there were quite a few good candidates.

I'm not sure if any nationality is better than any other, I had a Croatian and an Italian on my shortlist too, but there are an awful lot of Spaniards because of the dire situation in Spain and they are more likely to fit my requirements because I want over 25 yrs, laid-back and sporty with experience of coaching children or working in a summer camp. None of my au pairs have ever snorted or rolled their eyes at me, there would have been words if they had.

I always use aupairworld, not an agency. Like Suburban, I have a certain profile in mind and prefer to correspond with the girl and check references myself as I don't trust agencies.

Haha about French aupairs doing the snorting and eye rolling. We had only one French Parisian aupair. While she did not snort/eye roll (an aupair like that would soon be out if she pulled that trick), she was pretty much work-to-rule and quite a sour character. The first French aupair I hired was a no-show. I know other people have good experiences with French aupairs but I personally avoid them.

I generally have good experiences with German aupairs. My experience with Scandinavians is patchy. I now mostly use Eastern Europeans but again it is patchy. I have never used Spanish or Italians as I prefer the Germanic slightly distant professional work ethic as opposed to warm but more relaxed work attitude.

The obvious caveat is it depends on the individual but with 500+ profiles to sift through, it is better than a finger in the air. [Awaits accusations of stereotyping].

The French as a nation can be quite snorty, eye rolly and work to rule (and I say that having lived here for a fair while, married one and worked with them). If you can accept that it doesn't mean quite the same as it would in the UK it's fine but if you can't get past that it is a fairly common reason for French APs to not work out!

Personally I prefer websites. I used Great Au Pair because there are tons of anglophones which are my target, but the principles are the same and you can pick and choose more easily than an agency who filter for you.

Oh gosh, our French au pair has been the best one ever in many respects. Very respectful of us - the Germans had better English and were charming (and have all stayed in touch) but were much more likely to try to impose 'their way' of doing things on us than this girl seems to be.

To be fair, we trialled a French 'eye roller' early on who we did not hire. Funny to hear that come up here.

I am about to hire a friend of the current AP for next year actually - if all goes well. She is coming for a trial at the end of the month. I was so exhausted from AP World last year I couldn't face it this year and the agency I used previously seems to have closed down.

Thank you for your responses, everyone. I thought that I knew what I was looking for, but after a number of (huge) disappointments when I'd been soooo excited and certain I'd found a lovely au pair on APW, I've lost my confidence. There was the non-smoker who smoked, the one who'd tonnes of Childcare experience who used is as a base and used my phone to set up interviews as an I've cream seller in Slough (we live VERY far from slough), the lost is endless. So, please share your criteria as I've lost confidence in my own choices now.
Having had a French au pair(a) for 3 years, my DCs understand French pretty fluently now. That's a pull. But the attitude is a giant push.
I agree, from sifting through profiles of au pairs that don't seem any better than those on APW, that using an agency is unnecessary and potentially limited. It does seen ludicrous that I'd pay £400to be guaranteed ONE replacement in the first month and 'ta tah' after that. Ludicrous! But how do I avoid awful ones who use us? Please share your criteria ;)
Do you all try more in line thingies than Au Pair World?

I have refined my criteria over the years. I'm a sahm so my au pairs very rarely have sole charge of the DC, so I need an older brother/sister type of person who can play with the DC and tire them out a bit. The DC can't do homework in the same room and they both need me to sit with them while they do it (DS has ASD, takes nearly an hour to do 20 mins of homework and just won't do unless I'm right beside him, DD has reading trouble and may be dyslexic and needs extra literacy work), so our au pair goes off to play with the one child while I do homework with the other.

DS can be quite oppositional/defiant and DD is extremely shy so I look for candidates who have worked in summer camps or coached a sport so they are used to a wide variety of personality types. The au pair who is starting in June is a Tae Kwon Do coach for instance, so he should be able to take a bit of spirited behaviour. I won't consider anyone who's main experience with children is looking after relatives, and I usually discount the ones with a slightly rose-tinted view of childhood.

I quite like candidates who have a clear reason for wanting to learn English, usually they are a recent graduate and need to have English to further their career. I'm less keen on the ones who are drifting from au pair job to au pair job because they're not sure what they want to do with their lives. Spain recently changed the employment criteria for teachers, I think all teachers now have to have a foreign language to a reasonably high level, so there are quite a few newly-qualified teachers looking for an au pair job.

They have to be over 25 for car insurance reasons, I start my age range from 24 though as sometimes I really like the sound of someone who will be turning 25 soon. They also have to have travelled or lived away from home so I know they can mainly sort themselves out and will just need advice and recommendations from me rather than hand-holding and sorting things out for them.

I also like to read a bit of background about them, something about the sports they do or their interests. I like the ones who seem fairly extrovert as I think they will be happier if they make friends and have a good social life here. So mention of team sports, travelling and going to the beach with friends are all good, only solitary stuff like reading, drawing, watching arty films etc might be less suitable for us (but would suit a family in a rural area perhaps).

I've learned not to get too caught up in their qualifications, we had one au pair who had a masters in educational psychology and she was a lovely person but she wasn't used to just playing with children, so she would observe them or try to direct their play rather than joining in with what they were already doing. So for instance she would ask DS "do you want to come and play X with me?" and he would say "no" so she would go away, whereas our other au pairs would look at what DS was up to and say "that looks fun, can I join in?".

I have found it better to wait for au pairs to apply to me on APW, rather than me making first contact.

I always make a long list, usually 10 or 12 candidates, and then Skype interview the four most likely. I have a list of questions that I email to them before the interview so they know what to expect, and I let the DC ask a few questions, usually about favourite football teams and whether they like dogs. I feel that if they can interact with the DC over Skype then there is a better chance that they will get on in real life. Sometimes the Skype is very revealing, I once interviewed a very strong candidate (newly qualified PE teacher who coached a football team) and he looked horrified at the antics of my DC, whereas the guy that we ended up employing laughed himself silly at the same antics and said my DC were hilarious.

Suburban, really helpful! Think I'll stick with APW. My son is currently being assessed for AS. Makes things slightly more interesting on the AP front. You've given me lots of food fir thought!